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III
The four aspects of collecting that I have been describing—the creation of order, a fascination with chance, curiosity about the past, and a desire for understanding—are all subsumed under the urge to tame the external world. This general idea, in which collecting is traced to a human need for making the environment seem less threatening and more understandable, has been much in evidence in the past few decades, as intellectual interest in the process of collecting has increased. The trend is symbolized by the seminal anthology The Cultures of Collecting (1994), edited by John Elsner and Roger Cardinal, and by the volumes in Routledge's "The Collecting Cultures Series" (1995- ), edited by Susan M. Pearce. One can only applaud the growing tendency for cultural critics to address this subject, for—given its fundamental role in human life—it has been remarkably neglected (especially so outside the fields of psychology and object-relations psychoanalysis). But if there is a kind of consensus that collectors create stable controllable environments as a way of coping with the chaos of the so-called objective world and defining themselves in relation to it, there is much debate about the details of the process. I hope I can offer some perspective on the discussion by explaining my disagreements with one or two of the major commentators.
One of the better-known essays on collecting is Jean Baudrillard's "Le système marginal" (in Le système des objets, 1968). In the words of Roger Cardinal's fine translation (for The Cultures of Collecting), Baudrillard says that objects interpose, "in that space between the irreversible flux of existence and our own selves, a screen that is discontinuous, classifiable, reversible, as repetitive as one could wish, a fringe of the world that remains docile in our physical or mental grip, and thus wards off all anxiety" (p. 15). The act of collecting divests objects of their functions and makes them "participate in a mutual relationship" with their owners: the items in a collection "thereby constitute themselves as a system, on the basis of which the subject seeks to piece together his world" (p. 7). These statements, and others like them in the essay, are
The question of the universality of collecting becomes a basic issue through his negative bias, which seems inappropriate if the activity is indeed universal. His comments on the "collecting impulse" of children and his apparent agreement with the view that "an individual who is not some sort of collector can only be a cretin or hopelessly subhuman" (p. 9) suggests that he thinks of collecting as a natural and universal human activity. But if so, it is hard to see why he treats it as regressive. Much of his discussion deals with collecting "as a powerful mechanism of compensation during critical phases in a person's sexual development," as "a regression to the anal stage" (p. 9), as an "escapist" passion leading to a "neurotic equilibrium" (p. 11) and often to a "sexually perverse pattern of behaviour" in which beauty is jealously savored "in isolation" (p. 18), and as a fetishistic activity, a "discreet variety of sexual perversion (p. 19). If, however, everyone engages in collecting to support "our very project of survival" (p. 7), why should it not be viewed in a positive light? The thought seems to have crossed Baudrillard's mind at the point where he asks, "can one really speak of normality or anomaly here?" (p. 16). This question has the potential to undermine his whole analysis and is not pursued. Instead, he continues to say that "the intercession of objects . . . allows us, albeit regressively, to live our lives" (p. 17), and he ends with the idea that "he who does collect can never entirely shake off an air of impoverishment and depleted humanity." But the essay fails to show why it is not equally possible to see collecting in a diametrically opposite way, not as evasion and escapism but as a human urge to connect with the world, to make sense of it so that one can feel in harmony with it and experience it more richly.
Another writer on these matters, one of the most prolific and thoughtful commentators on collecting and museum studies, is Susan M. Pearce, whose most ambitious work thus far is On Collecting: An Investigation into Collecting in the European Tradition (1995). This book, which
It is surprising, therefore, that she seems content with a concept of collecting that excludes two-thirds of the population. She begins her series preface, "Nearly one in every three people in North America collects something" (the "Nearly" even implying that the number seems large). Later in the book she speaks of "a third of us" interacting with objects "in ways which result in what we may agree to call a collection" (p. 174). Her preliminary brief definition hints at a requirement of self-consciously purposive selectivity—"the gathering together and setting aside of selected objects "(p. 3)—though this definition would not have to be interpreted in so exclusive a way. But one of her more detailed definitions does make explicit several restrictive elements: collecting, she states, involves "the deliberate intention to create a group of material perceived by its possessor to be lifted out of the common purposes of daily life and to be appropriate to carry a significant investment of thought and feeling, and so also of time, trouble and resource" (p. 23). If only a minority fits this definition, she is faced with the question why those few "choose this way of defining themselves" (p. 174); and her answer, which brings us "as close as we are likely to get to an understanding of what makes a collector," is, "A combination of circumstance, accident and particular traits of personality" (p. 175). This is one of the most unsatisfactory discussions in the book, for this "explanation" could be
These comments on Baudrillard and Pearce can serve to suggest what seems to me a basic defect in much of the writing about collecting: the act of collecting is often seen as an aberration, if not a disorder, affecting some portion (frequently a small one) of the human population.[15] This proposition is one that I believe breaks down the more one thinks about it. The relative number of people engaged in collecting is a significant matter, for it determines whether one can reasonably speak of this behavior as an abnormality. Defining collecting so as to include everyone makes sense if two conditions apply: if, first, one cannot form clear-cut distinctions between categories of gathering and, second, one hopes to arrive at the most fundamental understanding of the activity. These two conditions are naturally related, for if one continually finds that attempted categories overlap one another, one should perhaps conclude that there is a broader concept linking them and that one has not found a helpful way of subdividing it. (What one may have identified are some of the characteristics, not always mutually exclusive, that are combined in varying proportions in individual instances.) I am not concerned with terminology: I do not care whether we use "collecting," "gathering," or "accumulating" as the most comprehensive term, or whether we treat all three as synonyms (as I have done here) or find yet another word. What is important is that any concepts we choose to distinguish by separate terms be logically distinct, so that the terminology is an aid to clear thinking and not in itself a cause of confusion.
As I indicated at the outset, it is hard to see how logical distinctions can be made according to how active or purposive or focused collecting
From that basic point, one can move on to consider what makes individual cases different, why some people seem to become pathological or obsessive in their collecting, why some are more methodical than others, or focus on certain kinds of objects, or think about the growth in monetary value of their possessions, and so on. The infinite variety of combinations and intensities of motivation, being the product of those great mysteries circumstance and temperament, cannot be fully plumbed. But each unique history can be examined, and generalizations can be framed about the patterns these histories fall into. Studies of both kinds are regularly produced,[16] but investigations on this level do not often penetrate to the roots of collecting. There is an underlying ground that unites the diverse accounts, and the detailed histories and analyses of collectors and collecting take on different meanings and are more
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